ContinueDripWeRide, an autonomous driving technology startup, has officially been listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States at the end of June 2021.Will be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in the United StatesThe related public offering will be carried out in August this year, with an expected issuance of 8 million shares and the goal of raising US$1.59 million in funds. It may become the largest public offering of a Chinese company in the United States after Didi.
WeRide was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Guangzhou, China. It is invested by GAC, NVIDIA, Bosch, IDG Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Cornerstone Capital and others. It has accumulated more than US$10 billion in funds through 10 rounds of investment and its market valuation in 2022 is approximately US$50 billion.
In order to successfully go public in the United States, WeRide completed the registration with the International Cooperation Department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission in late August last year, and must complete the overseas listing within the next year, which means it must be listed before August 8 this year.
However, WeRide still stated in relevant documents that its headquarters is located in China and its main business is in the Chinese market. Its business may face various legal and operational risks, and its future development may also have related uncertainties. Before preparing to start the listing promotion, it will not disclose its number of American depositary shares and the recommended stock price range.
WeRide's current business includes self-driving taxis, self-driving buses, self-driving trucks, self-driving environmental cleaning vehicles, and advanced intelligent driving vehicles. It will also support online ride-hailing, public transportation vehicles, freight driving surround-view protection systems, and advanced intelligent driving technology applications. It has also obtained self-driving vehicle licenses in China, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore.
Just as many autonomous driving technology companies have successively gone public through IPOs or sought investors with more abundant funds, in addition to enabling their businesses to enter the market and make profits faster, they can also attract more funds to support the huge expenses behind autonomous driving technology.
However, even though governments around the world attach equal importance to the application of autonomous driving technology, such technology is still in its early stages of development. Although many technologies can already operate autonomously under specific circumstances, there are still many environmental conditions that limit it. At the same time, the vehicle's operating speed has not yet reached the actual ideal performance. At the same time, a certain amount of human resources are still required to ensure driving safety. Therefore, it will take a lot of development time before it can be actually applied in real environments.
